Archival footage shows Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) calling his Baltimore community “drug infested.”
The footage was dug up by President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign.
The campaign shared the 30-second clip showing Cummings speaking at a 1999 congressional hearing.
“This morning I left my community of Baltimore, a drug infested area, where a lot of the drugs that we’re talking about today have already taken the lives of so many children,” Cummings said.
“The same children I watched 14-15 years ago as they grew up, now walking around like zombies.”
Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings in 1999: “This morning I left my community of Baltimore, a DRUG INFESTED area” where people are “walking around like zombies.” pic.twitter.com/MGUDfXL7UC
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 31, 2019
“This is only around 40 miles away from here,” he added.
The footage appears to contradict claims that Trump was being racist when he called the Baltimore portion of Cummings’s district “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
Critics said calling a majority-black area “infested” was due to racism. Trump said later that his criticism of Cummings and Baltimore wasn’t racist but motivated by factual information. Baltimore was ranked by the Orkin pest company as one of the top cities for calls regarding rats and bed bugs and its murder rate is the highest in the nation for a major metropolitan area.
The president also said that the billions of dollars sent to Baltimore by the federal government last year was either “stolen or wasted,” adding, “Ask Elijah Cummings where it went.”
Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbors.
It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.
— Elijah E. Cummings (@RepCummings) July 27, 2019
Cummings has mostly remained silent since Trump began criticizing him. He said on Saturday, July 27 after the first wave: “Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbors. It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.”
The archival footage came as Cummings reportedly rejected an invitation from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson to take a tour of Baltimore’s HUD facility.
Carson urged people to put aside differences and address the city’s problems during his visit.
“There are problems here in Baltimore. There are good things in Baltimore. There are bad things in Baltimore. Baltimore has been in the news a lot lately and I have a special place in my heart for Baltimore and for the people in Baltimore there are a lot of excellent and wonderful people here and there are a lot of good places in Baltimore as well,” Carson said.
“But there are problems and we can’t sweep them under the rug.”